Evaluation of Choroidal Vascularity Index in Sarcoidosis Patients without Ocular Involvement

Author: Sevcan Balci (Turkey)

Co-authors: Nursal Melda Yenerel, Alev Ozcelik Kose

Purpose

To evaluate choroidal structural changes in sarcoidosis patients without ocular involvement using choroidal vascularity index (CVI) which was computed from image binarization tool on enhanced depth imaging-optical coherence tomography (EDI-OCT) scans.

Setting/Venue

HAYDARPASA NUMUNE TRAINING AND RESEARCH HOSPITAL, ISTANBUL.

Methods

Thirty-two eyes of 16 biopsy-proven sarcoidosis patients without ocular involvement and 20 age-, sex-, and spherical equivalent matched healthy controls were included in this study. None of the patients had cardiac involvement and a history of corticosteroid use for at least three months at the time of OCT shots. Total choroidal area was segmented into luminal (LA) and stromal interstitial area (SA) by the binarization technique using ImageJ software (Bethesda, MD). CVI was defined as the ratio of LA to the total choroidal area (TCA).

Results

The CVI was computed 70.63 ± 4.93 % in patients with sarcoidosis, which was signiﬁcantly higher compared to healthy controls (67.6 ± 2.04, p ＜ 0.001). The SA and LA were found significantly lower in patients with sarcoidosis than the controls (2.47 ± 1.22 vs. 3.60 ± 1.11, p ＜ 0.001; 4.81 ± 0.02 vs. 6.42 ± 0.17, p ＜ 0.001, respectively).

Conlusions

In the presented study, it was found that patients with sarcoidosis had higher CVI values when compared to normal subjects. It seems both luminal and stromal areas of choroid were affected in sarcoidosis patients without ocular involvement.

Financial Disclosure

The authors declared that this study received no financial support.